Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has insisted that he is innocent. Talking to a select gathering of editors and columnists here on Wednesday, Gilani said that his counsel and party would devise a strategy relating to the contempt of court case.
According to him, Parliament is supreme, President is part of parliament, and heads of coalition government are united in relation to a decision with respect to the contempt of court case. During consultation on 18th Constitutional Amendment not even a single person from the opposition stated that the President did not enjoy immunity, Gilani added. The Prime Minister said he had held a meeting with the foreign minister, the Chief of Army Staff and the Director General Inter-Service Intelligence Tuesday on the issue of Balochistan and a decision to convene as soon as possible an All-Party Conference (APC) was taken.
Gilani said the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package prepared by the Senator Raza Rabbasi and adopted by the National Assembly and subsequently implementation of political, administrative and constitutional reforms and allocation of more resources to the province through National Finance Commission Award (NFC) and royalty had been completely overshadowed by the law and order situation and the issue of missing persons in the province. Gilani however, added that the law and order situation was essentially a provincial subject. When told that he himself took up the issue of Indian involvement in Balochistan during his meeting with the Indian Prime Minister at Sharm-el Shaikh in Egypt, Gilani said discussions were continuing at secretary-level talks between the two countries.
The Prime Minister did not make any comment on the recent statement by Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar that the Nato had been allowed to use Pakistan air space for transportation of food items. When asked why he remained silent on public gatherings organised by banned parties in various cities of Pakistan, Gilani said that a Cabinet meeting had decided to write to the provincial governments not to allow banned outfits to organise rallies. He said the Interior Minister had already written to the provincial governments in this regard.
In reply to a question about the transfer of the then Finance Secretary, Waqar Masood, to Economic Affairs Division (EAD), he said that a change had been made because there was a need for it and the EAD was also an important Ministry. On Memogate and improvement in civilian-military relations, Gilani said that the removal of defence secretary there had to resolve misunderstanding between government and army.
According to Gilani, there are five cases in which he is frequently maligned and promotion and transfer of federal secretaries is one such case. He said he had complied with the court decisions. The remaining four namely Khawah Adnan case, Rao Shakeel, Zain Sukhara, and Khurram Rasool were all sub judice matter. Gilani said the matter in relation to restructuring of State-owned Entities (SOEs) was being pursued by a committee headed by the finance minister and work in that regard was near completion.
The PM said the government was committed to IP gas pipeline project and creation of South Punjab as a new province. The Prime Minister said that the released figures had shown that Rs 15 billion trade over Line of Control had taken place till to-date, and "this is the way forward with India."
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